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Be careful. If you are looking for quality of schools - which does effect home value - the state says Rockland ranks near the bottom. This is especially true of the high school and middle school - both of which fared poorly in the MCAS. If you are looking for friendly people - Rockland has plenty of them. If you are looking for a good library - look elsewhere. The library is in decay and it isn't open on weekends or most nights. Downtown Rockland is mostly a ghost town. And Rockland has absolutely no supermarkets - although there are plenty in the towns around it. Rockland also hasn't invested much in conservation land - instead allowing developers to pretty much do whatever they want.... more

Peter,
Michael below is correct. A condex is a two unit condominium. The legal documents will call for Condo Trust with each unit owner as owning 50% of the trust. Normally the grounds around the property is common area. The unit owner usually owns their half of the dwelling from the walls in. Every complex can have different rules.

I am a mortgage person so my comments about condexes comes from a financing poit of view.
The more current issues with a condex is that often the owners have ignored the condo document requirements and have been treating their property as if they were living in single family homes. Some of them honestly do not know that they own part of a condominium. This is usually not a problem until they try to sell the units. They may not be paying condo fees for common expenses. Their insurance coverage often names the unit owner as the insured instead of the Condo Association. So when a new buyer tries to finance the property a lot of changes have to be made.

The benefits of a condex is that its almost like living in a single family. The condo fees can be minimal to cover the master insurance policy and some funds used for capital imrpovements that will be needed in the future such as possibly the replacement of a roof, repainting the exterior or the repaving of a common driveway. The concern for a lender is that what happens when these expenses come up and there are no funds put away in a reserve account. Hopefully each unit owner will be able to come up with their share of the costs.

So if you are looking to purchase a condex, make sure your lender knows this so that they can make sure you are pre-approved for the loan programs that will cover these type of properties. They can also make sure that these properties are FHA or FNMA approved or approvable.... more

The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America mortgage program are you preaproved for this loan if not FHA loans are around 4% I have in house morgage company to help. If you are available we could meet and see what price range you are looking in.... more

Hello Shegiff- I don't really think that would help you any; if the selling bank were to also get your new mortgage on the place. It may be one big company, but the different departments of big banks don't really talk to eachother nor care what the other is doing for the most part. That's just my opinion.
The asset manager who is trying to unload the property will get paid the same whether or not you get a mortgage from their bank or from someone else.
But yes, as the others have said - this would all be public record. Just call the town assessor's office, or the country registry of deeds. They should be able to tell you over the phone.
Good luck,
Ken L.... more

As far as market conditions are concerned, Rockland median home prices are rising and close to where they were in February of 2008. Inventory has been relatively flat since February of this year. There haven't been as many sales as there were last month since October of 2008. And average days on market is dropping.

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